One of those Days

Guess I’m not the only one who’s day doesn’t always go to plan.  With Robin out and about, and a day to myself at home today, I was looking forward to spending some time at the sewing machine.  But first…… a load of washing, followed by a stint of ironing.  Perhaps I should clean the bathroom, to make it look fresh and clean.  Now what about the floor?  With threads from sewing, and a white cat who seems to drop fur everywhere, there were bits and pieces all over the carpet.  I did contemplate leaving this chore for another day, but then, what is someone popped in?  So out came the vacuum cleaner, that horrible noisy thing which had Gemma scampering away to hide – anyone would think her life was in danger! Job done, and I have to admit it looks so much better.  Made some broccoli and cheese soup in the microwave, and finally sat down at midday with a bowl of delicious soup and toast, and the day was half over. 

So I only achieved a little sewing in the afternoon on my selvedge bag.  The blocks have been laid out and stitched in rows, and some setting triangles added.  This is what I’ve done so far, it doesn’t look too bad.

Starting on my selvedge bag

The plan is, once again, to work on this project again tomorrow.  So hopefully I’ll have more to show at the end of the day.  I doubt if I’ll get it completed, but each little bit helps, one step at a time.

Donuts and Donations

Quite a busy day today, driving 50kms to Palmerston North for a medical appointment.  Nothing too bad, I was booked in for a Bone Density scan, so nice and peaceful, not like the noisy MRI from a few weeks ago.  After crossing another couple of things off our “to do” list, we headed to the Food Hall in the Mall for lunch.  So much choice – what to have?  We decided on a Bento Box of chicken and rice.  This was the first time we had tried it, and it was really tasty.  I needed a coffee after that, and perhaps a cinnamon donut to go with it from Donut King.  I’m always interested in watching them being made, and very kindly shared them with Robin.

Coffee and Cinnamon donuts

Leaving Robin relaxing in the Food Hall I went to drop off a bag of donations.  Foster Hope is a charity working with children in foster care.  Children were arriving at foster homes with their belongings in a plastic rubbish bag.  To change that, Foster Hope provides backpacks with pyjamas, underwear, toiletries and other items  for each child moving into care and other items are welcome, such as quilts, drawstring bags, knitted items and toys.  I was happy to donate two small children’s quilts, and made several drawstring bags.  The craft coordinator told me that the bags are used for toiletries, or keeping pens and pencils in.

Donations for Foster Hope

The little bags are easy enough to make, but I do like to line them.  As quilters, we seem to have so much fabric in our stash, don’t we, and some of it probably won’t be used for quilts.  So I am happy to make use of some of the novelty prints, and want to make sure that I make some more boyish ones as well.   And as  I often do “leader and ender” sewing, this is an easy way to stitch small quilts together.

There was a dismal failure  last week when I rolled the dice to work on my selvedge bag – I feel like hanging my head in shame!  Never mind, I’ve decided to carry over this project for the current week, starting tomorrow, Thursday.  Where has the week gone?  At least we will be spending the weekend at home, instead of being away in the caravan, so I hope to spend a few hours at the sewing machine.

A Little Hand Quilting

A four day weekend away with caravan club friends – what could be nicer?  To be truthful the weather could have been much  nicer, but then, the season has just clicked over to Winter on 1st June.  After a long and very mild Autumn, Winter has arrived with a vengeance.  Winds strong enough to buffet the caravan, torrential rain, and low temperatures.  Thank goodness for fluffy winter sheets on the bed, and warm socks and slipper to keep our toes warm inside!  My quilting bag was packed, so I’ve been tucked up inside doing a little hand quilting today.

My Pumpkin Bag, made long ago

I’m working on my New Zealand Botanical quilt – perhaps I’ll find a nicer name for it sooner or later.  During the week at home I finished quilting the first block of nine, pohutukawa flowers.  This tree is also known as the New Zealand Christmas tree, as it flowers over Christmas, in our Summer.

Pohutukawa block

Quilting block number two in the caravan

Of course, Gemma came away with us as well.  She is quite at home in the caravan, and spent some time yesterday watching the rain drops run down the front window.  Otherwise she likes to curl up somewhere for a snooze.  On the bed with the sun streaming in the window suits her admirably.  Looks like the rain has finally gone away, although those strong cold winds are still hanging around.

Snoozing in the sun shine

We are currently staying at the Manawatu Caravan Club grounds, which have many static caravans and their club members often come out for weekends.  We have got to know Pam whose unit is not far from where our caravan club vans are.  Pam is an ex- breeder of Birman cats, and a Show Official at cat shows.  She knew we had previously lost our elderly cat Muffy, so I popped over to ask if she would like to come and meet our new baby. 

 

Pam with Gemma

Gemma couldn’t get enough of cuddling up with Pam, who told us she “had a good shaped head”, for show purposes, so that is nice to know.  As Gemma is maturing she is developing “golden hues” on her back, which is also a desirable feature of the breed, Pam remarked.  Not that we are going to show her, Gemma was purchased as a pet, and she is a real delight.

In between the showers we took a quick trip down to Foxton Beach, which is only a stone’s throw from the camp.  There were a few hardy souls out for a brisk beach walk, with the wind surely blowing any cobwebs away.

Foxton Beach

Let's hope those strong winds abate before we tow the caravan home tomorrow.  Monday is a public holiday here, Queen's Birthday, so the roads may well be rather busy.  Luckily it is a reasonably short trip to get back home.

Sew Wot Tuesday at Fox’s Cottage

It was a Sew Wot morning with a difference today as we met in the classroom at the lovely quilt shop, Fox’s Cottage.  Situated on the corner of Purcell St and SH1 at Foxton it is a bright and busy shop indeed.  Owners Robyn and Luchelle always make their customers feel very welcome.

Fox’s Cottage at Foxton

With so many goodies to check out in the shop, not much stitching got done.  Several of us brought knitting along, including me, for a change.  I’m trying hard to complete my cozy woolen cardigan before another winter rolls by.  You really don’t want to know just how long this project has been hanging about!  Helen was the hostess today (she had arranged for us to meet in the shop) and brought along morning tea for us all.  We were joined by several other ladies who were also there for the morning.

Morning Tea provided by Helen

We gathered together in the class room

There was a small amount of Show and Tell.  Mary had brought along two pink and red bed runners she had made from large house blocks.  You can see some of the shop class samples peeping out on the wall behind her.

And she had a wonderful range of candle-wick pieces to show us.  These came to Mary via her sister in Aussie who found them in an Op Shop.  We presumed that these lovely blocks were given to the Op Shop by relatives  when the stitcher passed away.  They are all beautifully stitched and Mary chose a cream and blue floral print while at the shop to use when putting the blocks together. 

Just one of several dozen stitcheries

Helen had a quilt to show as well, made by Sew Wot member Rae who passed away a while ago.  This was given to Helen, who made a great job of finishing it.

Helen’s quilt, started by Rae

Most of us took time to look around the extensive shop, stocked with so many delights I didn’t know where to look first.  Just look at all that luscious wool – but I really must get my rather long winded project completed before I start something new.

Just a small corner of the fabric selection

We enjoyed another lovely morning together, many thanks to Helen for arranging this for us.

The Secret Life of of Cats

Our cat Gemma gets up to all sorts of mischief at night.  Mind you, she does this very quietly and we don't hear a thing.  Come morning however, we see what she has been getting up to while we have been sleeping.  Not content with dropping her little mouse toys into her water bowl, as reported last week, she has been inflicting the same punishment on her toy snake.

Toy snake in the water bowl

Gemma often takes a swipe at the small wall hangings too.  She knows there is dingly-dangly cord hanging behind each one and this is what she is really after.  The other morning we came out to the sitting room to find these two hanging at crazy angles.

Attacked by the cat in the dead of night

This is how they should be hanging

The picture of innocence

It’s Roll the Dice Monday again today, so I was keen to see which number on my list I would be working on this week.  Number four – my selvedge bag.  This is an old project I had forgotten about and I found the little selvedge blocks tucked away in a magazine.  I obviously wanted to use up some small selvedge lengths when I stitched these blocks.

Project number four, selvedge bag

I’d better get going and make a start on this.  Once again, it is another busy week (aren’t they all) with several social occasions, a medical appointment, and then we are off and away in the caravan on Thursday for the long Queen’s Birthday Weekend. Monday is a public holiday, but we decided we would go early and have Friday away too.

Stitching Day

It’s always the big question when I am going out for a day of stitching – just how many projects to pack?.  One or two maybe?  No I decided on three hand projects.  I could have taken my sewing machine if I wanted, but quite honestly, its rather a hassle to unhook it from my sewing cabinet, and quite heavy to load it in the car,and lug it into the hall.  So I usually take the easy way out and do hand stitching on these monthly quilt club get-togethers.

There were several Town and Country quilt club members already there when I arrived, with more arriving a little later. I settled down at a table, unpacked bag number one, and started carrying on with hand quilting on my New Zealand Botanical quilt.   Robin reminded me that I had stated quite emphatically a while ago that I would never hand quilt a quilt again.  (Although I can cope with small items, such as cushions.)  But since I spent so much time doing the stitchery blocks over the last eighteen months, I thought I would like to hand quilt it.  I’m doing Big Stitch quilting, and using a Sue Spargo thread, Perle No 8 in a pretty variegated pale green.

 

Hand quilting

After lunch I felt like a change of pace, so packed away the hand quilting and opened up bag number two, to work on a new stitchery block.  Not a great deal to show so far – just some stems and the beginning of green leaves on this Autumn block.

Autumn stitchery

There were all sorts of projects being worked on around the hall.  Sewing machines were humming along, hand stitching was being done, applique flowers were being traced and cut out, and fabric squares were being cut.   Marjorie was stitching the rows together on her very graphic black and white with a touch of red rail fence blocks.

Marjorie’s quilt

I loved Jackie’s bright and colourful Laura Birch quilt, she was busy hand quilting this beauty and it will be going to a grand child.  I’m sure I have a Laura Birch panel tucked away somewhere, wonder where it is?

Jackie was hand quilting too

I packed up and headed for home at 3.30pm, so bag number three didn’t even get opened.  But never mind, I had a lovely day doing some slow stitching on two projects, and catching up with other club members.

Rolling the Dice and Two Drowned Mice

Monday is roll the dice day (if we are home and not galivanting away in the caravan), and it brought up number one again, the same as last week.  Not that I’m complaining at all, I’m more than happy to keep working on my New Zealand Botanical blocks.  It seemed a shame to pack this project away last week, as I was not too far from completing the quilt top.

Number one again this week

So some cutting, pinning and stitching took place over the last couple of days and I now have borders on my top.  I decided on a dark green leaf fabric for the inner border.  Then the outer border used some pretty fabric printed with New Zealand flowers, which had been tucked away for quite some time.  It seemed just the thing to use on this project.

Completed top

While I was cutting and stitching, I also prepared the binding, so it’s always good to get that job out of the way. The backing is pieced too, I wonder why it seems that the fabric I have is never quite wide enough?  My next job will be to layer and pin the quilt sandwich. 

Binding is prepared

We are never quite sure what our Birman cat Gemma gets up to at night, as she doesn’t often come and sleep on the bed with us.  Although strangely enough, she always does sleep on our caravan bed when we are away.  Quite often when we get up in the morning we find her little toys in strange places.  Lately her two little mouse toys have been sopping wet, so we presume that she drops them in her water bowl, for whatever reason.  Poor little mousies!

Two very wet mouse toys